The Clearwing tropical moth travels 4,500 miles from Guyana to Port Talbot

A new species of moth has been found in a South Wales house after traveling thousands of miles in a photographer’s shoe bag.

Two butterflies with clear wings appear to have bonded as caterpillars, traveling 4,500 miles from a tropical forest in Guyana, South America, before ending up in Port Talbot.

Three months later, they were spotted on a winter windowsill by ecologist Daisy Cadet and her mother Ashley, in what scientists described as an “improbable event” that “defies rational explanation.”

Through DNA analysis, scientists confirmed that the moth was not only a non-British species, but was not previously known to science. This species is named Carmenta brachyclados.

Daisy (22 years old) said: “She was not shaving at all, perhaps because the house was very cold at that time, and the other house next to it was already dead.”

“When I first saw them, I knew they were clear-winged and assumed they were British species like the six-banded clear-winged birds.

“For me, finding a new butterfly was exciting enough, but at this point, I had no idea it was so unusual.”

To learn more about the strange moths, Daisy decided to post pictures on the social media platform Instagram, and a follower reached out to say that they did not resemble the species known in the United Kingdom.

After being shared widely, the photos reached the Natural History Museum’s butterfly experts, Mark Sterling and David Lees.

“Since then it’s been a few months of email chains and moth chasing to find out what the moth is and how it got to Wales,” Daisy said.

When Daisy examined her mother’s shoe bag, which Ashley had taken with her during a photography trip to Guyana, she found the remains of two delicate cocoons — protective coverings made by insects during the pupal stage of development.

The specimen, about 18 mm long, has been named Carmenta brachyclados.

The researchers said that the wings of C. brachyclados are transparent, with black veins and black tips, and the upper side of its body has iridescent blue lines edged with yellow lines while the underside is bright sulfur yellow.

The humidity and warmer temperature in the shoe bag may have helped tropical caterpillars survive and grow into moths during the harsh winter, experts said.

Mark Stirling, a research scientist at the Natural History Museum, said: “Dewinged butterflies are very difficult to find, even by professional entomologists.

“They are very difficult to raise from larvae or pupae, which usually dry out or rot within a few days of being collected.”

He said the chances of two clear-winged butterflies from the tropical forests of South America “successfully emerging in south Wales, more than three months after their arrival, in a cold Welsh winter, and being preserved in good condition, are extraordinary.”

“The improbability of this event defies rational explanation,” Mr Sterling said.

Daisy said she felt very lucky to have played a part in discovering a new species of moth, but she also felt “a lot of sadness and anxiety” about how many other people were lost to climate change.

“We are honored to be able to make such discoveries,” she said. “Awareness is no longer enough, and we need urgent and targeted action to protect what remains.”